If you just see this and, like 20 others, blindly say “you should trust your partner” then you haven’t thought about it at all. If you trust your partner completely, then you trust them to use your location information responsibly, right? So trust does not have any bearing on whether to use it or not.
The issue for me is that we should try to avoid normalising behaviour which enables coercive control in relationships, even if it is practical. That means that even if you trust your partner not to spy on your every move and use the information against you, you shouldn’t enable it because it makes it harder for everyone who can’t trust their partner to that extent to justify not using it.
On a more practical level, controlling behaviour doesn’t always manifest straight away. What’s safe now may not be safe in two years, and if it does start ramping up later, it may be much, much harder to back out of agreements made today which end up impacting your safety.
If you trust your partner completely, then you trust them to use your location information responsibly, right?
No. But it isn’t about that, anyway. Those apps sell your location data to advertisers and governments, and I’m not installing that bullshit on my phone after I kicked google off of it with grapheneOS.
Apple absolutely doesn’t sell that information. The way they implemented it, they can’t even collect the information to sell.
X to doubt, and that doesn’t help people who don’t use walledgardenOS
Bullshit, why would they follow the law here? The penalties are hilariously tiny compared to the profits.
I appreciate the sentiment here, but I disagree with the premise in the first paragraph. It sounds like the age-old “nothing to hide” argument.
I trust my SO with my location information and I have nothing to hide, but I don’t provide it because they don’t need it. That’s it. Why should I compromise my privacy and potentially security just because I trust someone? That’s dumb. They don’t need it so I don’t provide it, that’s my primary reason and that should be enough.
I have other reasons too, such as:
- I don’t trust my or my SO’s phone manufacturer to keep that data confidential, and I don’t want them selling that to someone
- I don’t trust my government to steal that information en masse, and I’d really rather not trigger some alarm somewhere
- I don’t trust most of the apps on my phone with location information, and I’d really rather not trust my phone’s app security to prevent them from getting it
- breaches happen, and I’d really rather my location information not end up in criminals’ hands
And so on. There’s no upside and tons of potential downsides, so why do it?
It sounds like the age-old “nothing to hide” argument.
It’s really not, though. For many couples (including my own relationship), this is something we talked about before implementing. We both decided that since we have the technology, we should use it to our advantage…so we do. Right now we’re using Life360, but I’ve already implemented Traccar (self-hosted and accessed via Home Assistant) for our older kids who have phones (Pinwheel), and I plan on extending that capability to my wife as well, so we can dump Life360.
If everyone consents and you trust the service, I guess that’s fine.
I just personally don’t see the benefit. My area has a really low crime rate, my kids don’t have phones and don’t go anywhere on their own anyway (they hang out w/ neighbors or we drive whem somewhere), and my SO and I just go between work and home and rarely anywhere else. If we have a unique schedule, we let each other know.
The only time I think I’d want it is if I’m doing something potentially risky, like going on a hike on my own, which I almost never do. That’s pretty much it.
When my kids get phones, I plan to follow the same policy. If they go somewhere, they need to let us know where they’re going, who a backup contact is (i.e. if they lose their phone or it dies), and when they’ll be home. I don’t need to know exactly where they are if I trust them to inform me if plans change.
I ride motorcycles. So I just leave it on by default because my wife worries when I go out. Rightly so. Cagers can be absolute fucking morons.
When my kids get phones, I plan to follow the same policy. If they go somewhere, they need to let us know where they’re going, who a backup contact is (i.e. if they lose their phone or it dies), and when they’ll be home. I don’t need to know exactly where they are if I trust them to inform me if plans change.
Our two eldest kids have Pinwheel phones. I was very up-front about what we can see from their devices on the parent portal side, and what they are and are not allowed to do with them. Their mom (my ex) doesn’t like it, but as I’m the one with primary custody and the one who pays for the devices, and the fact that the kids know I’m open about the phones’ capabilities, her opinion doesn’t really matter. I’m not malicious about it, either; she’s just a cunt.
Obviously each situation is different, but I’m very much on the side of trusting kids vs having some kind of leash. Sure, my kids would probably be fine w/ the caveat that I can see whatever they’re doing if that means they get a phone, but to me, it also shows that I don’t trust them, and that could mean they won’t come to me when something I can’t track happens. I personally value that two-way trust a lot more than whatever short-term benefits tracking gives me, and I go out of my way to tell my kids what I could do so they know how much I trust them.
So far it has worked out, but my kids aren’t teenagers yet (close), so we’ll see what happens once their social circle broadens a bit.
They don’t need it so I don’t provide it, that’s my primary reason and that should be enough.
It is enough. In fact, it’s better than the “you should trust your SO” argument which doesn’t make any sense.
I trust my family. Trust them enough that they have the passcode to my phone and can easily open it at any time.
But I’m not sharing location. How will I sneak out to buy gifts if they get a notification when I leave work? Nope.
Privacy is something that I think needs to be actively encouraged. It is a right, and thinks like location tracking are creeping their way into daily life and eroding that right.
No one should have the ability to violate that. And we shouldn’t be making it easier to.
oh good lord no. years, decades, centuries even couples have trusted each other WITHOUT the need to tracking their where abouts. suddenly this is something we need? no it isn’t. but sure, you go ahead and slap a tag on your “loved one” so you know where they are at all times and so will whatever company is selling your data from said tag.
I didn’t say it’s something you need. Read the rest of my comment.
My mom the other day sent me like 5 texts in a row because I didn’t see them while working. Had to stop and tell her “For the past century, if most people wanted to contact their kids they waited months for letters to go back and forth. No need to panic over not talking for a day.”
This is a huge no from me. My SO doesn’t need my location, and sharing it has a lot of potential downsides, like:
- phone manufacturer selling it to advertisers
- gov’t getting it and I accidentally trust trigger some alarm
- data getting exposed in a breach
- apps without location access getting it through some means
There’s a lot of potential downside and the upside is… my SO knows when I’m almost home?
Yeah, no. Maybe I’ll share if I’m doing something risky like hiking alone, but that’s never staying on constantly.
I don’t agree with the practice but I do see the point - it reduces anxiety and gives your partner a sense that you’re okay for relationships where trust is strong. For toxic relationships this should absolutely not be a thing.
As far as governments or companies selling the data… You can use some self-hosted services on a de-googled GrapheneOS or LineageOS install and use sattelite location only. Then, pipe that to said self hosted solution that doesn’t sell your data like homeassistant or whatever.
Idk, I think it would increase anxiety for my SO, and we have a lot of trust. For example, if I take a coworker home, go out to lunch, etc w/o telling my SO, and they see that deviation in my routine, they could start doubting that trust. But if they just don’t see it, they just rely on what we tell each other, and if it’s not important, it doesn’t need to be communicated and can’t create that anxiety.
At least that’s my take. My SO is really trusting, but also quite anxious because of nonsense they read on SM and whatnot, so a deviation can create a lot of unnecessary concern.
But yeah, I wouldn’t be completely opposed to a self-hosted solution here. I use GrapheneOS, and if the UX isn’t too terrible (i.e. easy to toggle off and on), it could be really useful for something like going hiking alone or whatever.
if I take a coworker home, go out to lunch, etc w/o telling my SO, and they see that deviation in my routine, they could start doubting that trust
This means there are still significant insecurities in the relationship that can bubble up and become problems, and you know about these.
You do not trust your spouse to trust you and not misinterpret your intentions.
Paradoxally You can defeat some of this insecurity by being transparent and welcoming misinterpretation if you believe you both have full trust in each other.
As a high anxiety person myself, this works to defeat the anxiety which is often feared of the unknown. By proving that deviations to your routine are not something they should feel anxious about, then that anxiety can melt away.
It honestly hasn’t been a big problem, but my SO for some reason invents a bunch of unlikely stuff they have to consciously ignore.
Do whatever works though.
Call me old school but I just text my SO when I am almost home.
My route has pretty much no stoplights, so there’s not really an opportunity to text. But I send a text when I leave and if I’m delayed (i.e. I’ll have an opportunity to text).
It works well.
Creepy
After 30 years of marriage, my wife floated the idea of turning this on. I looked at her like she had two heads.
Why would anyone be willfully surveilled? You know its not just your partner that has access to that data when you have location services enabled.
Found Hank Hill’s neighbor, Dale.
lol do you think your phone isn’t normally recording your your location data even without this feature turned on?
lol Do you think its not made worse by turning it on?
Made worse, like they had the info before but now they really have it? They always have it, that’s it. If you’re concerned about privacy drop the phone, otherwise it’s a bullshit argument.
You think the toggle literally does nothing? That’s insane. Third parties don’t exist? Extra surveillance doesnt exist? You are fucking ignorant.
This kind of shit is pretty common for younger people. I work as a teacher, and I hear students talk about this all the time. I tell them how unhealthy it is blah, blah, blah. My SO tells the younger people at her work “If I had PumpkinSkink’s location sharing on he couldn’t surprise me with cake from the bakery”. She has had more success than I getting people to stop.
Not just couples. I was aghast to learn that my fellow parents at work track the location of their teenage kids. All of them, except me. What the fuck? If I want to know where they are I text and ask.
What’s more - half of them also have it turned on in the other direction.
This is crazy to me. I want my kids to grow into adults and I’m not going to surveil them all the time. I think a kid of teen age has some reasonable expectation of privacy. We are close, I have a good relationship with my kids but not THAT close, I don’t need to know if you stopped at Wawa on your way home.
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My wife and I have each other’s locations. We trust each other. We just like having that information available. It’s really not that hard to understand.
It sounds like you and your wife have a healthy relationship. That’s awesome! But, for possessive and controlling relationships, surveillance can be harmful.
Personally, my location is shared with my sister. I’d share it with my partner but he is a bit of a Luddite. I wouldn’t be sharing because he asked, I would be doing it so he could find me easily in an emergency.
And, I wouldn’t ask him to share his. If he turned it on and wanted me to have it, that’s cool. And if not, that’s cool too.
But, for possessive and controlling relationships, surveillance can be harmful.
Absolutely. My previous marriage was like that. Luckily the topic of location tracking never came up.
Not hard to understand, no, but many find it to be creepy and invasive.
Not hard to understand, no, but many find it to be creepy and invasive.
Those people are free to not use the tech. Being forced to use the tech, however, is absolutely a problem.
A lot of those people are projecting their insecurities onto others relationships.
Yeah like … I trust my husband, and I am also not his keeper, so I do not need to know where he is 24/7. I find it very odd and invasive.
Even when I need the security aspect of tracking I’d share my location with my mother or a close friend rather than my partner.
Man I took my kids off location sharing when they got their first phones at 12. Shit is creepy.
Just communicate!
Exactly! My kids aren’t getting phones until I trust them, and if I trust them, I don’t need location sharing.
If this was demanded of me, I would end the relationship immediately. That’s absolutely not worth it.
Yep. This is one of those hard lines for me. And I feel like it’s a red flag for anyone who demands it from a partner.
I trust my partner and they trust me. I actively encourage them to do things without me, because I want them to be an independent person. I want them to have friends that I don’t hang out with.
I comment in a different part of this thread how my spouse and just share everything, but I complete get what you are saying.
And what if you broke your leg and were lying in a ditch while chipmunks were eating your spleen, eh? How would anyone ever find you huh? Bet the egg is really on your face now!
i’d get those chipmunks some cheese.
Well then that’s just too bad for me, isn’t it?
Obviously I have my phone on me so I could just dial 911. If your phone breaks when whatever occurs to you, then your spouse or whatever isn’t going to be able to track your location and you’re not going to be able to call 911 either. So either way you’re fucked.
But what if a T-Rex swats your phone away but gets distracted trying to pick it up with his tiny arms, and forgets to eat you, huh? Bet you didn’t consider that likely scenario eh Buster Brown?
Don’t be silly, you’ll obviously have your hands full defending your spleen from chipmunks, no time to dial 911
Jesus fuck, what did people do with their spouses and kids before phones? Trust them?
Sounds unlikely.
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today the guardian almost wrote something about a real concern that totally happened with sane people
If you have to use these things in a relationship, then you already have a problem.
We only share our locations when for example my wife is coming home from shopping groceries so that I know when to go out to the parking lot to help carry the groceries home.
I had no idea people share locations constantly.
My friend shares her’s with me continuously. I do not share mine. I see no point. I don’t even know why she shares her’s with me. I’ve only found it a bit useful two or three times over the years. And more of in a “I don’t have to walk around this area to find her” way. If I didn’t have her location I’d just walk around a couple minutes to I spotted her.
